If you use data from secondary sources, the data must be documented; that is, you must indicate where the data originated. Using the ideas of someone else without giving credit is plagiarism and is unethical.

Even if you paraphrase and put the information in your own words, the ideas must be documented. In citing sources, you should use direct quotations sparingly. Good writers use the exact words of another writer to emphasize opinions because of the author’s status as an expert; duplicate the exact wording before criticizing; or repeat identical phrasing because of its precision, clarity, or aptness.

Citing sources strengthens your argument as a writer, and shields you from charges of plagiarism.

Documentation Styles

These are four popular styles of documentation.

  • MLA (Modern Language Association) is used in literature and most of the humanities.
  • The APA (American Psychological Association), which is generally used in the social sciences
  • The CBE (Council of Biology Editors) is used in biology and many other sciences.
  • The Chicago Manual of Style which actually has two styles it favors.

Most styles ask that references be listed on a page by themselves, alphabetically by author, and includes all the references you used to produce your report. This list is called References, Works Cited, Cited References, or References, depending on the style you have used. (The Chicago Manual of Style uses the titles Bibliography, Selected Bibliography, and Works Cited.)

The list for any given paper or report may include a variety of sources. A source is anything you draw information from, and in your report you should list every source you used.

Citing Sources

Every bibliography entry is created from a number of standard components. The most basic three are author, title, and publication information. As with all our writing, it is important to be consistent within your document, and demonstrate your attention to those details.

As you can see from the examples here, the differences between formats are pretty significant to look at, although the details are the same within each record.

One author, in Chicago Manual style:

Lynne Truss. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation , New York, Gotham Books, 1993

One author, in American Psychological Association (APA) style:

Truss, Lynne (1993). Eats, shoots & leaves: The zero tolerance approach to punctuation. New York, Gotham Books, 1993

One author, in British Broadcasting Corporation News Style Guidelines:

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynne Truss, Gotham Books, New York, 1993

Entry Components

Here is a list of each element you might find in a bibliography entry for a book or part of a book.

  • The author’s or authors’ names (or the editor or editors’ names if you are referring to a collection). This part of the entry comes first, since a bibliography is in most cases an alphabetical listing by author of material used in writing a book or report.
  • The title of the work.
  • The name of the collection in which you found the work.
  • The editor’s or editors’ names (if the work appears in a collection), or translator or compiler, if one is used.
  • The edition number for works other than a first edition.
  • The number(s) of the volume(s) used.
  • Publication data: the place of publication, followed by the publisher’s name, and in MLA, the date of the publication.
  • The page numbers of the work, if the work is part of a collection.
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